


echoes

by CoffeeCats



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28613265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeCats/pseuds/CoffeeCats
Summary: an exploration of savathûn and xivu arath upon feeling their brother's death
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	echoes

For Savathûn, Oryx’s death was a cacophonous shatter that echoed through the fabric of her own throne world.

It was as though the universe itself had been stretched taut between the weight of three siblings and that fabric had snapped toward her when Oryx’s anchor was removed. For all the times she’d killed and been killed by her siblings, she had never considered what one of their true, proper deaths might feel like. The deaths they’d dealt to each other had been nothing more than temporary absences and lessons in keeping your guard up, but the silent, deafening toll that rang through her mind and throne left no question as to its origins.

With a quick, subtle gesture, she dismissed everyone from her realm. Now was not the time for input from those beneath her.

Was this what Oryx had felt when Crota had died? Was this the catalyst for his reckless fury and quest for vengeance? 

The exact identity of her brother’s killer was a mystery for the moment, but she knew well enough already. If Guardians had figured out how to gain access to Crota’s throne to kill him there, it was no small stretch of the imagination to believe they’d done the same to Oryx. Blinded by his grief and rage, he had clearly dropped his guard and paid the price.

A long forgotten memory of her brother’s warning cry across the cosmos bubbled to the surface and brought a question and a thread of doubt to her surety of what had happened.

_“We are betrayed. We will never live eternal.”_

_“Soon we will all be so mighty, and our worms so hungry, that not with all our might could we possibly feed them. And we will be devoured”_

… Had he intended this?

She scowled and, with a cutting gesture, folded a mirror of reality up around her. If Xivu Arath hadn’t already made a move, Savathûn knew where she would be.

* * *

For Xivu Arath, Oryx’s death was a physical blow that brought with it a bellowing challenge.

_I killed the strongest of you! What will you do about it?_

She knew what she would do, of course - she would answer and reclaim that power. But not yet. Savathûn may be the cleverest, but Xivu Arath liked to think she was smarter than her siblings thought. This would be a war that required some amount of planning and she knew that Savathûn would already have some information. Xivu Arath would have her moment for revenge and a delicious, furious battle, but she wasn’t going to walk in blind and fall victim to some trick of the Light.

The weight of her sword was familiar and comforting as she twirled it for a moment before setting its hungry edge against reality itself. A howling rift tore open and she stepped through onto the dark, dessicated husk of a rogue planet drifting aimlessly through the inky blackness of space. There was no sign of Savathûn yet, so she turned her blade to the ruins of a long dead civilization for a moment of diversion and release.

They’d killed this world together, she and Savathûn. Once it had orbited a warm yellow star, serving as a safe and nurturing home to a species just on the verge of spaceflight. There was no real gain for either of them in killing it--one small world with one insignificant species would provide only the barest of tributes. Both knew that more effort would be put into trying to best each other for rights to the spoils, so an unspoken game had formed instead. It was something of a cosmic keep-away, each sibling trying to toss the world somewhere the other wouldn’t find it, the other invariably discovering it again and doing the same. The game stretched on for centuries, played underneath their more pressing quests and goals, before they each declared themselves the winner and let the world drift away of its own volition. 

Now the empty world served as something of a hideout for the two of them. Secreted away from Oryx, it was their own little stage upon which to project their illusions while they bickered and taunted each other. Xivu Arath had never physically touched it before, but she knew Savathûn wouldn’t try to kill her now and held no fear of her sister whether she came in the flesh, as unlikely as that was, or as an illusion.

A sound that wasn’t a sound and a dull glow that illuminated the landscape betrayed Savathûn’s arrival.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” she said, voice ringing like a thousand shards of broken glass.

Xivu Arath drew herself up to her full height and rolled her shoulders back. “Remember which of us first traveled between the moons, dear sister. I am not as dull as you may think.”

“Good.”

Savathûn’s illusion flickered as it vanished and reappeared at Xivu Arath’s side, gaze turned out across the dusty landscape and the star speckled sky beyond. Xivu Arath joined her in silence for a moment, briefly wondering if Savathûn was lost in introspection or scheming. Certainly the latter, though given the circumstances the former wouldn’t be unexpected. 

There wasn’t much room in their existence for things like grief, but each knew the other felt it somewhere deep within their core. After everything they’d been through, from their first blood oath up until now, it had always been the three of them against everything. To so suddenly be reduced to two was… unsettling.

“Do you know who did it?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t know yet, but I will soon enough.” Old tones of childhood games were woven through the end of the sentence. Three studious eyes turned to Xivu Arath before she continued, fractionally more seriously. “Can I trust you to listen?”

Xivu Arath leaned on her blade’s pommel and mimicked her sister’s tone. “Can I trust you to speak truthfully?”

Neither gave an answer, but they didn’t have to. Millenia of campaigning together and against one another had already revealed their natures. Xivu Arath would listen until she found her opening; Savathûn would speak just enough truth to keep Xivu Arath curious.

“How long will it take?”

“Patience, sister,” Savathûn chided. “There are more things at play than just us and our brother’s killer.”

Xivu Arath sliced her sword through the illusion in one quick flick of the wrist. Savathûn watched the useless gesture with a touch of amusement.

“I’ll be in touch. Do not chase after Oryx,” she said, with a warning look. It could have been an expression of love and a desire to see her sister continue to live, or a threat to not interfere in her entirely obfuscated plans. Xivu Arath actively interpreted it as a threat, leaving the softer option to drift through her like silt to the seafloor, letting it settle with the echoes of her childhood. Bait-stars and affectionate embraces and an entire world as big as the universe.

Savathûn’s illusion vanished and the area was cast back into near darkness again, illuminated only by what radiated from Xivu Arath herself and the dull, distant starlight. She would be smart and bide her time, but she would have her vengeance. Savathûn may be the one who learned what they needed, but Xivu Arath would be the one to deliver death to their brother’s killer and to the system that birthed them.


End file.
